Zabriskie Point

Catching up on later Antonioni I haven't seen.  This one disappointed me.  I loved Blow Up and The Passenger, but can't recommend this one.  The two leads had never acted before, and it shows.  The political/sociological theme is heavy-handed and predictable.  Great music, and stunning shots of the desert, but otherwise, boring.

I came across this on my local library's shelves a couple of months ago, and I agree.  One of Polanski's best.  Always good to see Shelley Winters (as the concierge).

*****

On The Waterfront

I dug this one up to watch after Karl Malden's death. If you haven't seen this Elia Kazan classic, please do.  Marlon Brando is just amazing.  There's something he improvises during a walk and talk with Eva Marie Saint, playing with her glove, that is priceless.  And of course there is the famous "I could have been a contender" speech in the cab scene with Rod Steiger--the way those two play off of each other in that scene defines great acting.  Oh, and a fabulous score by Leonard Bernstein.

written by Stephen Gyllenhaal and starring a verrrry young James Spader.

This movie is awful, and I couldn't have finished watching it if Spader didn't make such a damned pretty sociopath!

After seeing this scene, I knew how he got all those pervy hero roles for over a decade-- and why he was up for the Denise Brysen role in TP before Duchovny got it. Those hips, those lips!

@ 5:62

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1fy9rgUwU&feature=PlayList&p=E870055211FA8BEB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

THX 1138  

This was George Lucas' first feature film, made in 1970 (one of the first films made by Coppola's American Zoetrope.)  I wish Lucas had stayed with this brand of minimalist, artsy film making. The sci-fi story of a future dystopia, where all the citizens have letters and numbers for names and are kept strictly sedated, is secondary to the visual and sound elements of this movie.  It is stunning to look at, filmed almost entirely in bright white.  The prison scene with Robert Duvall (as THX 1138) looking for an escape in a white space with no walls, while dressed in white, is fantastic.  Think 2001/Brazil/Truman Show. Recommended.

I watched this one with the Rifftrax, which was superfluous. I was laughing all the way through, and it wasn't because of any crack Mike and the guys made (though those were also funny). It's a bit like Nic Cage's Wicker Man in that way.

Sorta makes me regret defending Signs.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

I'm pretty sure it was a coping mechanism. The awkward dialogue, the utter expressionless of its two leads, the hyperviolent and unrealistic death porn, it was like Tom Savini meets The Room. The train that is M. Night just keeps on derailing... and I doubt even Unbreakable 2 will survive.

But yeah. Anyway, check out the Rifftrax.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

Venus

Peter O'Toole shows that he still has it, even in his 70's.  He plays Maurice, a successful but aging actor. His friend, Ian (played by Leslie Phillips) has consented to have his niece's daughter, Jessie, come to care for him.  Caring for anyone is the last thing in the nature of this rude, rough 20-something.  Ian is afraid of her, but Maurice is intrigued.  Starts out light, but takes a turn halfway through.  Enjoyable movie. Great wit and bantering among O'Toole, Phillips, and Richard Griffiths as three old thespians.

Cadillac Records

Great movie!  If you want to know where rock 'n roll came from, watch this.  The story of Chess Records; Leonard Chess and the icons he discovered and recorded--Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, and Etta James.  Jeffrey Wright is amazing as Muddy Waters.  Fantastic music within a fascinating story of a poor, immigrant Jew bringing "race" music into the mainstream in Chicago of the 1950's.

Tropic Thunder.  Maybe it was my frame of mind last night or a great desire to let off steam but I laughed out loud countless times watching this really stupid movie!  What an all-star cast in this Hollywood insider jokey movie too.  In my opinion it is the single best perf ever by Tom Cruise in what seemed to be a cameo.  I only watched the second half having come in in the middle so I don't know how much more "Len Grossman" may have existed.  Ben Stiller -- I know people hate him -- but FUNNY!!!  I remembered that Robert Downey Jr. was supposed to be in the cast too and kept wondering when he'd show up but I didn't realize he was playing a black man.  Jack Black was the weak cog in the humor though.  

Now I feel like I have to watch the entire movie to confirm that it actually was a funny movie and that it wasn't just a head trick caused by having had the husband out of town for over a week along with no Sunday night "Entourage" yesterday.  I cannot be certain if this really is a 4 to 5 star movie that I thought it was last night.

Susan

PS  Who knew?  Justin "Adam Kesher" Theroux wrote the screenplay!

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Incredible Hulk.

Amazing, the effects made me hard and was I moved? Yep, deeper than Gran Canyon. Funny thing, a friend recommended it, said it was extremey good... not even my nephews liked it. I mean please don´t underestimate the children, show them some respect and make an effort. God Damn It...what a vulgarity, lol.

Two questions: did my friend joke and Liv Tyler, how many Liv Tylers are there?

Let´s tip their power balance, tear down their crown,

Educate the masses, let´s burn the white Lodge Down!

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Julian Schnabel (artist and director of Basquiat and Before Night Falls) found a compelling way to bring this true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby to the screen.  Bauby was the editor of Elle, the French fashion magazine, when a paralyzing stroke left him only able to hear and see with one eye.  His speech therapist devises a method of communication, where one recites the alphabet in the order of most frequently used letters, and by blinking Bauby chooses a letter.  In this way, Bauby dictated his memoir.  Many scenes are shot from Bauby's point of view, and give an eerie sense of his reality.  There is a lot of beauty in this film, reflecting on will and human consciousness.  Recommended.

Shotgun Stories - Revolutionary Road  

So, I had never heard of Michael Shannon before, when unbeknownst to me i brought home from the library two movies with strong performances from Mr. Shannon in them.  In Shotgun Stories, he plays the oldest son of 3, born to an alcoholic and violent father who couldn't be bothered to name the boys other than Son, Boy, and Kid.  The father later left them, dried out, and had 3 more boys in a second, middle-class family. The feud and acts of revenge that come out of the death and funeral of that man are gut-wrenching.  Great first, indie film.

Revolutionary Road is another emotional roller-coaster.  Kate Winslet and L. DiCaprio act their little hearts out in this adaptation of a 1960's cultish novel of a marriage unraveling in 1950's suburbia.  Amazing screenplay--the couple's fights sound so real, the actors really go for it.  So does Michael Shannon, who plays a "crazy" son of real estate agent Kathy Bates.  His scenes, where he blows apart all the lies with his brutal perception of the truth, are electrifying. Tough to watch, but worth it.  

The Strangers.  Tense!  I was really on edge from beginning to end.  Nothing much scarier than the random youthful home invader bent on terror and bloody murder.  Scott Speedman was cuter in Felicity though. Liv Tyler and Jennifer Garner always seem interchangable to me. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Romance and Cigarettes

Somewhere during the commentary track, John Turturro calls this movie he wrote and directed, as "Charles Bukowski writes The Honeymooners, with music."  It's a great time.  Susan Sarandon (a seamstress in Queens) James Gandolfini (her cheating husband) Kate Winslet (the fiery, vulgar redhead girlfriend) Steve Buscemi (Gandolfini's friend and co-worker building bridges) Christopher Walken (Sarandon's Elvis-loving Uncle Bo) and more occasionally break into song and dance during the telling of the story.  It works.

The Saragossa Manuscript

It is wonderfully fitting that I came to this labyrinthine puzzle of a movie through Booth's riddles and clues in the Guess the Movie thread.  I don't know how this movie escaped me for so long, but better late than never!  

A pair of enemy soldiers during the Napoleonic wars discover a magical book, and are drawn into a maze of stories within stories, peopled with a rogues' gallery of ghosts, temptress sisters, philosophers, and cabalistic magicians.  Scorsese and Coppola restored this 1965 Polish film by Wojciech Has to its original full length.  A Lynch quote: Simultaneously horrific, erotic, and funny...this is one mother of a film.  

Thanks Booth!

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Sydney Pollack directed this documentary of the fantastic, out-of-the-box architect.  Anyone interested in art and architecture will enjoy this look into Gehry's growth into an architect, and his particular creative process.  Great Q & A with Alexander Payne talking to Pollack in the extras. 

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

A French film by Jacques Audiard. Romain Duris is powerful as Tom, a 28 yr. old in the often violent world of a Parisian property shark.  After a chance encounter with his dead concert pianist mother's manager, who offers him an audition, Tom sees a chance to change his life.  Of course, there are obstacles on the way.  A very different rite of passage story, with a dizzying blend of of worlds brutal and musical.  Highly recommended.

 I had to go research the Mon Oncle reference (that was before I discovered the Gazette), and what a disappointment when I reached the this point, and...EDIT!  I'm sure I would have appreciated that embarrassing twaddle.  Of course, I must now find a copy of Mon Oncle to watch.